Epic
by Ultrawoman
Summary: Piz wasn't blind or stupid. That's how come he knew that he and Veronica Mars were over forever. All it took was a half dozen words from Logan and a single look from Veronica that proved the point... One-Shot. AU 3x20. LoVe.


**A/N: I think everyone has an idea how things should've gone after the last ever ep of Veronica Mars. Here is what I wanted to see after that all important look of LoVe from The Bitch is Back...**

_**Disclaimer: All recognisable characters from 'Veronica Mars' belong to Rob Thomas and other important people who aren't me.**_

Epic

Piz wasn't blind or stupid. He may be a lot of other things, good and bad, but those were not two on the list. That's how come he knew, in that singular moment in the Hearst College food court, that he and Veronica Mars were over forever. All it took was a half dozen words from Logan and a single look from Veronica that proved the point for poor Piz.

'I'm really sorry, man, for everything'

Logan could've meant for being a sarcastic jackass, for accusing him of betraying Veronica, or for beating him to a bloody pulp, but Piz knew better. There was one far larger thing his rich counterpart could be sorry to him for - he was about to take his girlfriend away, and they both knew it.

There was a pride, a longing, a wonder and moreover a love in her eyes as Veronica gazed over the broken body of a fellow student at her hero. Logan wasn't perhaps the traditional knight in shining armour, but he was always there, ready and willing to prove he was still fighting Veronica's corner, still looking out for her, still loving her. What they had was special, and Piz couldn't stand to pretend he hadn't noticed anymore.

"Hey" said Veronica as he walked over, "I was just going to..."

"We need to talk" her boyfriend dared to interrupt as he took her gently by the elbow and led her away from prying ears and eyes into the semi-privacy of an all but empty hallway.

"What's going on, Piz?" she asked, genuinely bemused apparently.

"Well, I guess first I wanna ask if you're okay?" he told her.

"I am, thanks to Logan" she said with a hint of that same almost dreamy smile curving her lips and making Piz almost physically wince.

"Okay, that's great, but... and this is the much harder part of me to verbalise" he admitted, "So, bear with me whilst I try... um, so you're still in love with Logan" he told her after much fidgeting and all.

Piz wasn't entirely surprised when his girlfriend let out a snort of laughter at the suggestion he was certain she was about to vehemently deny.

"Piz, that's crazy!" she declared, "Logan and I are over"

"No" he shook his head sadly, removing her hands the moment she tried to lay them on his shoulders, "See, you say that, but then I see what he's willing to do for you, and I see the way you look at him, how crazy you can drive each other, plus all the cute little Logan and Veronica tales from High School I've heard from Wallace and Mac and even you before now..."

"Piz" she tried to interrupt but he wasn't about to let her when he'd finally found a way to say this.

"Veronica, please" he urged her to listen, "Now you are, without question, the most amazing woman I have ever met, nevermind dated" he told her definitely, "I mean, you're smart, you're fun, you're insanely hot, and you're a badass PI too. You're everything a guy could want plus like a thousand percent" he flattered her, but every word spoken he knew to be the truth, "but you and me, it's not meant to be, and I know that. So for maybe the first time in my whole life, I'm being the adult here, the bigger man, and that means doing the right thing for the both of us even if it's not easy" he told her, breaking his own heart but knowing it was necessary.

"And this right thing would be...?" she asked, feeling oddly tearful right now.

"I'm letting you go, Veronica" he said, feeling like some noble gentleman in a bad romance novel, and at the same time a little sick to realise he was the fool who was giving up the greatest girl in Neptune and beyond, "You know as well as I do... you belong with Logan" he told her, immediately turning away from her before he did something really dumb like cry.

"Piz" immediately Veronica stopped him with a hand on his arm, "I don't want him" she insisted, at which Piz couldn't help but smile an odd kind of smile.

"Maybe not right now" he agreed, "but you do love him, more than I could ever hope you'd love me" he shook his head sadly, "What you guys have, it colours everything. It's spanned years, broken families, huge events, and..."

"It's epic" said Veronica, out of nowhere as far as Piz could tell but then he didn't hear the speech Logan had once made ingrained on his memory like Veronica did.

"I guess you could say that" he said as he considered her words, wondering if there was more to her description of that particular relationship that what he understood.

The look on her face certainly suggested some deeper meaning to the word 'epic', still he would rather not know what it was. As Piz walked away then Veronica's eyes remained unfocused and a look of stunned confusion filled her face. Amongst all the things she was so unsure of, there was one that she knew was true. Piz had been right in what he said about her relationship with Logan. The question therefore remained, what did she want to do about that now?

* * * * *

Logan had just got done cleaning himself up after his run in with Gory Sorokin. That asshole deserved everything he got and more as far as he was concerned. Nobody treated Veronica that way and got away with it. Sure, he was some big league who could have him killed, at least that was what Veronica had implied, but Logan figured he didn't need to care too much about that. The pair of them seemed to be pretty good at getting out of dangerous situations. If that should change and the worst should happen, right now Logan couldn't see he had an awful lot to lose, and there was everything to gain.

Veronica meant the world to Logan, she was pretty much everything he ever wanted and without her things were looking kind of bleak, truth be told. Sitting down on the couch, now showered and changed, he carefully ran his fingers over the bruised knuckles of his other hand. He'd split them open again in a couple of places, not surprising since they'd barely had time to heal from the pummelling he gave Piz. Wincing just a little, he looked away, trying to think about something else. It didn't do to dwell on the past, though it was so easy to do sometimes, whether you liked it or not.

Just as Logan started to wonder if he should call and see where Dick was at or something, there was a knock on his door. He hadn't ordered room service, Parker had broken up with him, and Dick had a key card. There really wasn't anyone else who would be there to see him, as far as Logan could make out anyway. Moving to open the door, he got a real surprise when he found Veronica the other side, her back to him as she seemed to be considering her decision to come here, almost walking away before they ever spoke to each other.

"Veronica..." he said, not sure what came next and not getting a chance to wonder too much on it as she pushed past him into the room, saying they needed to talk, "Strange, I thought you were the one telling me we _didn't _need to talk anymore" he noted, "In fact..."

"Logan, please" she urged him as she sank down onto the couch with her face momentarily in her hands, "Could you please just not tell me what an inconsistent bitch I am for two seconds?"

He frowned at her words, harsh as they were. There was no way Logan was going to call her such a thing. She had her reasons to be mad at him, and he knew what they were. Sure, he'd had his own to lose it with her before now, but he couldn't be so cold. Had he not just proven exactly how much she meant to him, a few minutes ago at Hearst, in front of everybody? In all honesty, she was actually kind of scaring him now, and he sat down beside her, reaching out a hand to her shoulder. Veronica turned her head to see him then and gasped at the sight of blood trickling down his fingers.

"We need to clean this up" she told him, carefully taking his hand in hers, pulling tissue from a box on the table and getting him to hold it in place whilst she ran to the bathroom and returned with First Aid supplied to clean and bind the injuries he'd sustained.

"It's nothing" was all he managed to say as she silently worked, a hundred questions filling his head right now, like why was she here and what did this mean, but not a single one left his lips, not yet.

"All done" she proclaimed when she was finished, "Are you hurt anywhere else?" she asked then, mindful that Sorokin had probably got a few licks in on the way down.

"Nothing I can't deal with" he nodded, their eyes meeting for the briefest of moments, but she understood.

Logan had taken some of the worst beatings of his life when he was just a kid. Anything he faced now was nothing in comparison to his father's anger and violence. Shaking her head for no reason she could explain, Veronica returned the First Aid box to the bathroom and then came to sit beside Logan again, still silent.

"I guess I should tell you why I'm here" she said at length, knowing he was watching her, waiting for an explanation or something, "Piz and I broke up" she said simply, wondering herself how she could be so calm and almost unmoved by those words within just a few minutes of the event happening.

"Wow" said Logan, not sure how he was supposed to react.

Inside he felt overjoyed that the woman he loved was no longer dating another guy, but at the same time his heart broke for her because another relationship had bitten the dust. She didn't have the best luck with friends or lovers or even family, and Logan hated that so many people would dare to wound her, even though he knew he was guilty of that himself in the past.

"And before you ask" she went on, when he said no more, "I didn't dump him, he dumped me" she explained, not sure whether Logan would find that more or less surprising.

Truth be told, he wasn't sure what to think, he hadn't really had time to wonder on how the break up occurred. The fact she was here, telling him all about it, suggested she wasn't blaming him for the downfall of her latest relationship, and that was something to be grateful for. If that were the case, she'd have been tearing lumps out of him, injured or not. It wouldn't be the first time, after all.

"I don't know what to say, Veronica" he sighed at length, "Except that, well, I guess now good old Piz gets to join my lonely little club" he forced a smile that looked decidedly pained when she glanced his way, "Y'know, the 'I dumped Veronica Mars because I'm an idiot' club" he told her, getting up from his seat and turning away from her.

Veronica wasn't sure what she was doing here, what she had intended to say, or what she thought Logan might say on hearing the news she'd come to share. All she did know was that Piz had made her realise she was never going to get along in life without Logan. She had tried to shut him out in all kinds of ways, but it had never stuck. Whether they were to be friends, or lovers, or whatever, she couldn't exactly say, but she had to have him close, she couldn't find a way to live without him.

"Logan..." she said, moving to stand beside him, her hands laid carefully on his back as she leant into him a little, mindful of hurting him.

It took all of three seconds for him to turn round and wrap her up in his arms, holding her close as she cried. Tears were not something Veronica Mars was used to sharing, this Logan knew for sure, but he was permitted to see them, help wipe them away, sometimes at least. Whatever this was leading to, he honestly wasn't sure, but he'd take what he could get right here, right now.

"Veronica, I can't say I'm sorry that Piz broke up with you" he told her carefully as he held onto her still, her tears now subsiding but already having dampened his shirt some, "I am sorry that you're hurting but..."

"I'm not" she admitted, interrupting him as she pulled her head up from his chest and lifted her eyes to meet his own, "Logan, that's the point" she sniffed, "when Piz said we were over, I waited for the pain to hit me, I waited to feel lost and hurt and... and it didn't happen" she admitted.

Logan wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that. Here he had the woman of his dreams held in his arms, telling him her latest relationship was over and shockingly she didn't even really care. What exactly that meant for the two of them, he really couldn't tell, and another mystery still remained.

"If he didn't hurt you" he said, lifting a hand to her cheek, "Why is your mascara making a liar out of you?" he asked, showing her the tears he wiped away with his thumb.

She shook her head to say no, wishing he could just understand without her trying to explain because it wasn't exactly easy. She shouldn't have come here until she had this straight in her head. Her emotions were so upside down right now, she hardly knew whether she was coming or going, but this was right and she knew that one thing for sure.

"I watched you walk out of the food court at Hearst" she told him, looking up through her lashes and meeting his eyes once again, "Logan, all I wanted to do was run after you, and I can't tell you why or what I wanted to say or anything, because I honestly don't know" she admitted, "but I just... I wanted to..." she was struggling so much with what she meant to say, she couldn't even find the words to argue when Logan leant down further until his lips met hers.

The sweet familiarity of his kiss still made her body tingle the whole way through, as it always had, and if she hadn't known it already, that simple moment proved without question to Veronica that this was where she had always belonged. The kiss was over mere seconds after it started and Logan pulled away looking almost ashamed of himself, something Veronica wasn't entirely used to seeing.

"I'm sorry" he said, backing up a step from her before he did something really dumb, even worse than he already had.

"Please, don't be" she urged him, "Logan, please" she said, reaching for his arm when he turned to walk away from her, "Don't be sorry, I don't want you to be sorry anymore" she told him, pulling him back around to face her, "Can we please just forget all the other stuff right now, all the fights and the yelling and everything?" she urged him, putting her arms up around his neck, feeling his hands go naturally to her waist as they stood close, "Is that okay?" she asked, almost shyly as Logan studied her face.

"I don't know" he said honestly, more than a little stunned by this whole turn of events, by the apparent one-eighty in her attitude from earlier today, "Veronica, you know I love you" he told her, one thing he was always certain of come what may.

"And I love you" she promised him faithfully, "Logan, I always have, and no matter how hard I try to feel differently, I can't. I don't want to anymore" she said, her voice too soft to her own ears as they moved in closer still and kissed each other again.

It wasn't going to be a fairytale ending. This kiss was not accompanied by a swell of music or audience applause, because that wasn't how life really worked out. Logan and Veronica would have their fights and their arguments, life would not be perfect all the time. Still, one thing was for certain; they loved each other, and that was never going to change. Nobody could guarantee the happily part, but they would be together ever after, like any couple with a truly epic love should be.

- The End -


End file.
